Maori Party Aiming for All Seven Seats

The Maori Party is
aiming to win all seven Maori electorate seats in Parliament
at the forthcoming General Election.

This target was
announced by party president Rangimarie Naida Glavish when
she addressed the 10th birthday celebration in Rotorua on
Saturday night which doubled as the opening of the party’s
2014 election campaign.

Ms Glavish said: “The seven
Maori seats are there for the taking by the Maori
Party.

We are confident of holding our present three
seats, Tamaki Makaurau (where Rangi McLean has huge support
over little known opposition), Waiariki (where co--leader
Te Ururoa Flavell has consolidated a large and loyal
following) and Te Tai Hauauru (where Chris McKenzie has ably
assumed the mantle of the incomparable Tariana
Turia).

“In two other seats we have the advantage of
offering our voters ‘a bob each way’ two-- for one
deal: in Te Tai Tokerau, Rev Te Hira Paenga for the
electorate seat, while Kelvin Davis comes in on the Labour
Party List, and Hauraki Waikato where they can have two
wahine toa, Susan Cullen for the electorate, and Nanaia
Mahuta a certainty with her high place on the Labour
List.

In the other two seats, we are confident we can win
because we have superior candidates, Marama Fox in Ikaroa
Rawhiti, and Ngaire Button in Te Tai Tonga, who will give
their electorates much more effective representation than
they are getting now."

“So just as there are seven stars
in Matariki, there are seven Maori seats in Parliament, and
we’re going for the lot – the full Matariki."

Ms
Glavish reminded her listeners that it was the Labour Party
that alienated Maori 10 years ago with its foreshore and
seabed legislation.

“It was the Labour Party that turned
its back on the alliance signed in 1936 between Michael
Joseph Savage and Tahupotiki Wiremu Ratana that had for so
many decades formed the link between Maori and Labour.

We
didn’t leave them; they left us.

“That’s not to say
we will never get back together again.

We are now governed
under a proportional system of MMP, which, for the first
time since the signing of te Tiriti o Waitangi, has given us
the opportunity to be at the table of government, on behalf
of Maori, in our own right as an independent party, of
Maori, by Maori, for Maori.

And there we will stay,
regardless of which major party leads the Government after
any election, as long as our people recognise that ours is
the party that represents and fights for the rights of all
Maori; the party that is te Pou o te Iwi Maori, the
watch--tower for Maori on Parliament Hill.

“There are
some among our people who accuse us of having sold out to
the National Party.

They need to have their eyes and ears
tested, and to wake themselves up to the realities of modern
political life.

We are in a Relationship Accord with
National because, and only because, National is the
government.

Only the government has the power, the mana,
to make and change laws, and to make life better for all New
Zealanders, but especially for Maori.

Nothing can be
achieved by performing a protest haka outside the fence or
from an Opposition bench in Parliament.

It was not protest
or opposition that negotiated the landmark programme of
Whanau Ora, undoubtedly the most effective social and
economic gain for Maori ever in our modern history.

Whanau
Ora was made possible only by the Maori Party being in
Government,” Ms Glavish concluded.

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